Great Contemporaries

Of all those appointed to his cabinet in May 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had known Leo Amery the longest—back to when they were schoolboys. Despite the longevity of their relationship, they were never very close. Rather, as Robert Rhodes James wrote, “there was always a definite restraint, a lack of warmth, a noticeable caution and reserve” between them. Nevertheless, Amery played a notable part in ensuring Churchill’s premiership.

The editor of their correspondence reflects on his work, with insights into the supportive relationship between Churchill and his mother Jennie.

Churchill was a devotee of Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) the English poet, short-story writer and novelist, who in 1907 won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Kipling’s majestic novels of the old Empire struck a romantic chord in the young Winston. Later they studded his books and speeches.

Churchill’s friendship with H.G. Wells spanned forty years, and his enthusiasm for the writer’s work went back to “The Time Machine,” Wells’s first novel, published 1895.

Attlee’s verdict: “Winston Churchill was one of the greatest men that history records. He was brave, gifted, inexhaustible and indomitable….‘ Genius does what it must. Talent does what it can.’ Energy and poetry really sum him up.”

From an vanished age of "loyal opposition" came a remarkable tribute to Churchill from longtime Labour opponent and successor, Clement Attlee.

Among British generals, Slim ranks with Wellington. His courageous Indian, African and British troops earned Winston Churchill's highest accolades.

Encounters between glittering literati: “To do good is noble,” Twain told young Winston. “To teach others to do good is nobler, and no trouble.”

Jacky Fisher was not finished. He was restless, an agitator. His dismay over the conduct of the naval war brought him closer to Churchill, and soon the two were on favourable terms, locked in a curious destiny. The press baron George Riddell wrote: “Fisher, the Duchess, and Winston are now bosom friends.”

Churchill began with an impassioned indictment of Admiralty management and the government. Carefully, precisely, he cited shipbuilding delays, the German threat to Britain’s maritime ascendancy, the lack of drive and conviction. Change was demanded. He wound up with one of the most remarkable reversals of his political career.

The name of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, commonly known as “Jacky,” was on the lips of everyone who cared about the Royal Navy. Fisher’s resignation in May 1915, at a critical stage of the Dardanelles campaign, had led to Churchill’s removal as First Lord of the Admiralty. That post constituted the political head of naval administration, with a prominent position in Cabinet. It offered unbounded influence in all aspects of war direction. Fisher had been at that time First Sea Lord, the senior naval officer. Churchill brought the famous Admiral out of retirement in October 1914 to put zeal and drive into naval affairs. Fisher arrived at a time of misadventure.

King George V succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father, Edward VII, in May 1910. In February that year, Winston Churchill became Home Secretary. To this day he remains the youngest such since Sir Robert Peel in 1822. Roy Jenkins described the Home Office as a “plank of wood” from which many other departments have since been carved. In 1910, however, the Home Office held vast authority over domestic affairs. Among these was the prison system, where Churchill supported reform and reduction of sentences.